


Winning

by chockfullofsecrets



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Sparring, Tickling, shippy if only bc Beau is pining, sometimes you have to hold hands with your friends and confront them about their insecurities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25232044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chockfullofsecrets/pseuds/chockfullofsecrets
Summary: “Perfect!We-ell, Caduceus and I are done for the day, and I’mreally sweatybecause moving stone ispre-tty hard work, I bet I smell like Caleb-” She paused to wrinkle her nose, and Beau smirked obligingly “-and it’s been a while since we fought anything, so before I wash up I wanted to ask you to spar with me!”Well, that settled it. It ran against her core principles to pass up an opportunity to punch something with no strings attached.Beau and Jester spar. Things get complicated.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre & Beauregard Lionett, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 6
Kudos: 59





	Winning

“Beau! Beau! Oh, _Booo-eau~_ ”

There was only one person who called - no, sang - her name with that particular sliding flourish, so Jester’s energetic entrance through the doorway of their shared bedroom met Beau with all the surprise of - well, Jester. She was a bombshell, sure, but the kind that worked so well every time that you started looking forward to hearing the explosion. “‘Sup.”

Jester’s legs, the warm blue of her skin spotted with dirt and paint, sent her frilled skirt fluttering as they danced in concert over to Beau’s bedside. “Beau, are you busy?”

Beau looked up at Jester’s eager smile and then down, somewhat guiltily, at her notes. She’d tasked herself with looking through every bit of information on the Empire and Asarius, drawing connections, anything that could get the attention of the Bright Queen without putting Empire citizens at risk. They needed to prove that their usefulness didn’t start and end with the beacon, and - well, Beau wasn’t great outside a fight but at least she was paying attention most of the time. She could find something, if she spent enough time on it. 

But if that meant saying no to _Jester_ \- “Uh, no?”

“Perfect! _We-ell_ , Caduceus and I are done for the day, and I’m _really sweaty_ because moving stone is _pre_ -tty hard work, I bet I smell like Caleb-” She paused to wrinkle her nose, and Beau smirked obligingly “-and it’s been a while since we fought anything, so before I wash up I wanted to ask you to spar with me!” 

Well, that settled it. It ran against her core principles to pass up an opportunity to punch something with no strings attached. “Hell yeah, let’s do it! Just - give me a sec, didn’t think I’d be fighting anyone today.” 

The week of relative calm in Xhorhas had left nearly all of them in a perpetual state of undress, armor and battle accoutrements stowed away for the first time in months - the last time she’d gone this long without her arm wrappings was probably before the Cobalt Soul, back in Kamordah. She’d still been braced for battle, back then, but an entirely different kind, respectable dresses and forcefully detangled hair and _why can’t you just be normal, Beauregard, why can’t you behave-_

“Come on, Beau! It’s time for _blood_.”

Jester’s attempt at a threatening rasp was punctuated with a giggle, audible all the way at the bottom of the staircase, and it made Beau smile just to hear her. She jammed the cloth tail of her wrappings into place and headed for the training room.

Jester was bouncing on the balls of her feet in the scattered sand, already clutching her holy symbol in one hand. “Okay, let’s do this - I have _so many_ cool spells now, this is going to be great-”

Beau abruptly flashed through the worst case scenario. “Hey, Jes?”

“Yeah?”

“Just - don’t turn me into an owl, okay? Or any animal, really, we’re sparring, but especially not an owl. Damage only.”

“Aw, _Beau_ , you’d be such a cute owl!” Jester held up her fingers at right angles, posing them to frame Beau’s face like she was already planning a drawing. Beau rolled her eyes and didn’t even bother with squaring up, lunging straight towards her opponent with fists coiled.

Jester stumbled back, laughing even as she clutched her side. “ _Whoa_ , you hit even harder now!” Beau was ready to go in for another hit, but Jester was already recovering - she watched as her friend’s smile compressed from mirthful to confident, eyes narrowing in concentration, and wasn’t Jester just beautiful when she was focused like that - and Beau darted back just in time to avoid a fistful of crackling energy. 

The spell fizzled in Jester’s palm and Beau closed the gap between them, but her next two punches were met with the solid metal wall of Jester’s shield. She dropped and swung her staff at Jester’s legs instead, forcing her to one knee, but as the shield came down there was a flare of pink behind it and Beau’s entire body lit up with pain as the glow enveloped her and sent her flailing back. “Ow, ow, fucking magic-”

She only felt a little bad about using her lightning gloves. And then not bad at all, because Jester returned the favor by lighting her on _fucking radiant fire_.

Time for a finishing move, then, before Jes picked her off at a distance (one more time, for good measure: _fucking magic_ ). Beau sprinted in, low to the ground. One foot toeing into the sand, she looped around to Jester’s exposed side and landed a flurry of blows followed up by a textbook Stunning Strike - fingers jabbed into meaty flesh, her qi pulsing and overwhelming her opponent’s, the enemy’s muscles locking up and starting to shake. 

Six seconds of victory it was.

“Ha!” She straightened up, spun around in adrenaline-fueled celebration and pumped her fists triumphantly to an imaginary crowd. In battle, she would have continued whaling on her victim - in sparring, it was the end of the match and an opportune time to gloat. “The monk takes it again! One, two, three-” 

Something collided with her back.

Beau’s first thought as she ate dirt, unsurprisingly, was that sand tasted _really bad_. She followed it quickly with a near-paralyzing dose of panic - Jester shouldn’t have been able to move yet, so who had tackled her? Why had she turned her back in a fight?

Delighted laughter rang out over her head, and some of the tension crept involuntarily from her limbs upon recognizing the owner of the mirth. “Jester? How-”

“I tricked you!” she crowed, feet planted firmly on either side of Beau’s butt. “I just _pretended_ to be stunned and you fell for it and now you’re going to _lo-ose_!”

Hearing that the game was still on, Beau’s heart rocketed back into her throat and she was instantly trying to crawl her way out from under Jester before she could take a spell to the back of the head. Jester was almost unbelievably heavy for her size, having a lot of muscle, but she was terrible at executing a proper pin and Beau could feel her start to topple as she started to lever herself up on her elbows. “Not yet, Jes!”

“No, no! Stay there!” Hands scrabbled at Beau’s shoulders, over the back of her head, but she shook them off and kept trying to unseat Jester. She wasn’t even bleeding that much yet, she could definitely still win this. 

Her can-do attitude lasted all of ten seconds, until Jester panicked and started fucking _tickling_ her.

She didn’t even notice the fingers jamming in under her arms, they were just all of a sudden _there_ and _wiggling_ and utterly disarming. All the breath in her lungs whooshed out in an unbidden shriek as her main priority shifted to making it _stop_. Her entire torso dropped to the floor as her arms gave out, rendering every syllable of protest a strangled mess. “AHA! Je-Jehehes, nohot fair! Nohoho!”

Jester settled back onto her perch as if she’d never left it, her obvious glee mixing with Beau’s own. “Oh, Beau, you’re so ticklish!”

“Am nohohot! Fahaha-” She couldn’t even get a good swear out, and the inability to vent her frustration made the whole thing even worse. “Stop, stohohop-”

“Are you going to surrender?” Jester asked imperiously, the last word lilting in her accent. She sounded formidable for a single instant before dropping right back down into ‘excited puppy’ territory. “Say that I win; say it!”

“Never!” Beau grunted. She was sure that Dairon would have been able to quiet her mind and break free by now, but that seemed pitifully out of reach for her - still, by some miracle of painful contortion, she finally managed to grab one of Jester’s hands and squeeze it painfully enough to elicit a yelp. “I - ha, ha - Jes, we said damage spells only.”

“Well, _tech_ -ni-cally this isn’t a spell,” Jester teased. Her free hand was still mercilessly tickling Beau’s right armpit, and it felt like the feedback from her gloves but a thousand times worse. Beau could barely keep her grip on the single hand she’d captured, and as Jester started poking randomly at her ribs her resolve weakened even further. “It’s like what you do!” Her voice pitched deep in a poor imitation of Beau’s. “Look at me, I’m a monk and I poke people and break all their muscles!” 

Beau was laughing too hard to even begin arguing that point. She tried to dredge up some determination, anger, anything, but all of it was leaking out of her along with the contents of her lungs. Jester’s other hand slipped free as Beau spasmed at yet another attack on her armpit, and now she was once again being assaulted from both sides. “Jes! Jehehes - nohoho! - Jes, _please_ -”

“You have to give up,” Jester cooed, sacrificing one of her hands to pat Beau on the shoulder in a mockery of soothing. “You’re too ticklish. Cootchie cootchie coo!” 

Nope. Nope, no, absolutely not. Beau folded under the saccharine teasing like an undercooked piece of pocket bacon. “No! Nononoho-” Jester’s evil fingers backed off a little, and with her last shred of dignity Beau was able to wheeze out, “I _fucking_ surrender, geeheez, just - ha - just lemme up and _never say that again_.”

Jester was off her back almost immediately. Beau could hear her boots clomping around in a victory dance, but her absorption of her loss was sound-only as she let herself face-plant into the sand. She inhaled a little sand, sure, but at this point she was pretty sure she deserved it.

“Beau? Oh no, are you okay?” Strong hands grabbed her shoulder and rolled her over. “Let me just - _ooh_ , no, I don’t have any healing spells prepared - I’ll go get Caduceus.” She sucked in a breath. “CADU-”

Beau reached up blindly, clapping a hand over her mouth, and wearily shoved herself into something approximating a seated position. “No, no, I’m fine, Jester, I just - _wow_ , that was really stupid of me.” 

She pulled her hand back, using it to scrub sand off her own face, and revealed Jester’s lips wreathed in a perfect O of concern. “Beau, don’t - stop that!”

“Huh? It’s fine, I gotta learn from my mistakes-”

“Beau!”

She looked up at Jester again, then followed her horrified expression down to her other hand. It was ground into the sand hard enough that little specks of blood were welling up in its wake. “Oh.”

Jester’s shield dropped with a _thud_. In a flurry of skirts she was sitting knee to knee with Beau, cradling her bloodied knuckles in dirt-stained hands. 

Beau looked down at her hands, listlessly cataloging the wet glisten of her wounds. It was easier than looking Jester in the eyes. There was a reason that you sat side-to-side with people when you were having difficult conversations with them, but she suspected that Jester hadn’t had enough of them to know. 

“Beau,” Jester said, dangerously soft. “Beau, why did you do that?”

“Uh.” There was something glittery in her eyelashes - probably the sand. She used the wraps on her free hand to scrub it away. Opened her mouth, closed it again, and then started dabbing at the blood on her other hand.

She could tell Jester was trying to sit patiently, but the _whump-whump-whump_ of her tail slapping agitatedly against the sand behind her was easy to hear and made Beau crack a smile despite herself. “Sorry, Jes, I shouldn’t be a sore loser. It’s been a while since I lost a fight, though, but I guess I haven’t fought alone in a while.” 

_I want to make sure I can protect you guys, and it pisses me off that I might make a mistake and lose one of you_ , she didn’t say.

Jester didn’t say anything until Beau looked up at her, and then she smiled wide enough that it almost masked the uncertainty in her dark eyes. “Oh, Beau, it’s okay! You don’t have to fight alone, ever, because we’re going to be there!”

Her hands were cupped around both of Beau’s now, protective, squeezing tightly. Beau twisted their pinkies together and smiled back at her, hoping there wasn’t any blood on her teeth.

Jester’s smile grew impossibly wider. On anyone else it would have looked insane, but somehow it just made her look even sweeter. “And _now_ we know that you have a really nice laugh, so that’s also good!”

It took all of Beau’s willpower and probably a few monk skills to keep her from going bright red. “Uh… sure.”

She watched cautiously as Jester’s eyes shifted to the side, her bottom lip disappearing between her teeth. “Beau, I know you’re mad at me… but I really don’t want you to be sad… would it make you even madder if I tickled you again, just a little bit to make you smile again, and then I’ll go get Caduceus and he’ll heal you?”

What was that first part again? Thinking while holding hands with Jester was hard enough. “You think…” Beau started slowly, “that I’m mad at you? Why?”

Jester’s lip chewing intensified, and now it was Beau’s turn to try and catch her gaze. “ _We-ell_ , because I played a trick on you and pretended to be stunned…and I forgot to prepare healing spells before I asked you to spar and if Caduceus doesn’t have them then we’ll just be like this until we go to sleep… and I’ve been really busy with Caduceus and we haven’t been hanging out as much… so I wanted to spar with you even though I knew you were probably busy…” 

Jester was shrinking in on herself as she spoke, fingers sliding away from Beau’s, and Beau must have made some kind of noise at that because Jester’s eyes leapt to hers and all of a sudden, like an illusion had just been cast, her friend was back to normal. “But if you’re _not_ mad at me then we don’t have to worry about it at all, it’s totally fine, and I’m just going to go get Caduceus now, okay?”

She made to get up, but Beau was already grabbing her hands and tugging her back into their little knee-triangle - rhombus? - of sadness. “Hey. Hey, Jes?”

Jester’s hands were shaking, just a little. “Yes, Beau?”

Finally, finally, their eyes met. “You know I love your tricks, right? I wouldn’t be mad - and none of the other stuff is your fault, that’s just - that’s just _you_ , Jes, you like fighting and creating things and making people feel like they’re at home - if you told me that you were feeling that way I would have told you days ago that I wasn’t mad at you. You know you can tell me this stuff, right? I could never just be mad at you.”

They sat, stone still and heavy with how hard they were both trying to be enough for each other, and then Jester pulled her hands away and in the same movement lunged at Beau to wrap her up in a hug. 

And quietly, against her shoulder - “But Beau, I don’t want you to be mad at yourself either, okay?”

Beau winced a little, her ribs definitely feeling the aftereffects of being sat on by a tiefling, but she squeezed Jester back just as tight. 

“Hey, Jessie, tell you what. Before we go find Cad, let’s have a round two. No spells and no fists.”

Jester giggled, her tail swishing excitedly against Beau’s knee. “A tickle fight?”

“To the death,” Beau deadpanned. “Gotta get my revenge in somehow.” 

And if she was blushing again, it was definitely determination to win and not because she was thinking about pinning Jester down and- 

Yeah. Winning.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you start thinking about the low amount of gen tickle fics with girls in them, and then you wonder why it feels weird to think about, and then you get really determined to write one, and then… well, here we are ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you're so inclined, come say hi on [tumblr](https://chockfullofsecrets.tumblr.com)!


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